@Nick2161 As a host who has never used IB, I go on written reviews (non-IB hosts can't view star ratings) and the guest's communication- both what they write and how they write it. If a guest has no reviews, there is only the communication to go by, but it has never led me astray.
If a guest sends an informative, polite and articulate initial message, I have no qualms about accepting them. If their initial message is more along the lines of "Arriving around noon", I message them back asking some questions, determining whether they have thoroughly read through the listing info, etc. This has always elicitied a more appropropriate message back from them.
But if it didn't, or they didn't respond, I would probably just decline.
There are basically 3 types of guests who have no reviews. They are brand new to Airbnb, their account shows they have been members for some time, or they have had bad reviews before and deleted their account and opened a new one.
With the newbies, you may have to do a bit more handholding and explain how Airbnb works, what host expectations are of guests, make sure they have entered the correct number of guests on the booking, etc.
The second type may have joined with the intention to travel, but never had that opportunity. They may have had Airbnb stays before, but their hosts failed to leave a review. They may have had stays before that were booked under their spouse's acct. I have experienced all of these and the guests turned out to be lovely.
The third type, you have no way of identifying as bad guests who rejoined. But their communication with you may send up red flags- i.e. they are "oversharing" to misrepresent their intentions (talking about how it's grandma's birthday and the family is so looking forward to celebrating it with her as she may not last much longer, blah blah....) when in fact they are planning to have a rager party full of 20 year olds. Or other things that set off your spidey sense.
